Boeroer

I proposed some months ago that a single class paladin, paired with a Berserker/Beckoner (the good old Grave Calling guy) would not only get insane Zeal refund but would also profit from those watcher-only necklaces from SSS that give you +1 MIG and RES per downed ally (up to +4). And there are some other items that do something on "ally down". You can spam Immolation because it's rel. easy to counter it with Lay on Hands while the summons die. I like it best to just spam FoD left and right. With fire PL bonus, general PL bonus (Prestige and so on) and decent enchantments FoD does serious damage. And with my beloved mortars it works in an AoE. I wish there were more mortars in Deadfire, seriously... When I kill an enemy Virtous Triumph can kick in and give me even more Zeal. And you kill a lot with permanent FoD shots. A Votary cannot get Devine Retribution.

Afaik it never did, even in PoE.

You cannot use Twinned Shot with an Imbue Shot. Both are active attack abilities. But the inherent jump of WSfocus and Driving Flight + Death Ring is indeed pretty bonkers. But I found out something different while playing my current MC (Arcane Archer/Bleak Walker with Spearcaster): Eternal Flame's 10% burning lash applied to the Imbue spells (Fireball and Missiles) which is cool. Also the accuracy with Imbue-Fireballs and FoD is enormous. I'm lvl 8 and have so much ACC with FoD and Imbue-shots that nearly everything is crit. It plays really well. I'm also playing a Bloodmage atm. - and in my party Blood Sacrifice is not that useful (in my opinion): Takes too long, is too random, is too painful on low levels (when I need it the most) and I totally miss my Empower ability. Especially as a multiclass char. Solo: sure, then it's great. But in a party? I don't know. Not bad - but also not so super as everybody's saying.

Huh? Did I miss that in the patch notes? Even if the forbidden fist ability is fixed: the wound generation is so slow (even with tricks like stepping into your own Tanglefoot or Bindig Web all the time) that it's no good compared to the other monks. You might say that a tank forbidden-fist-monk could generate wounds without the need to take damage - but a tank monk can't use Enduring Death reliably. Also Nalpasca gains 1 wound every 3 secs just by sniffing Coral Dust and stuff. AND from damage - AND from Dance of Death. Forbidden Fist needs to be a really great ability to balance that weird wound generation out. Also the healing on "afflicton expired" is funny at best. You can cheese around with Pull of Eora and Footsteps of the Beast+Confused, but I don't think a class should be only viable when using 1-2 gimmcks.

Hehe - taking it to the limits. If you have the Chillfog Enchantment it will trigger a Chillfog and summon a creature. I didn't test either but I believe (based in the bahavior those weapons showso far) that the imp enchantment will indeed produce one imp and one other creature then. In case of Ancient Brittle Bones you would then get 1 imp + 1 creature +2 skeletons.

Loot will still drop even if there's no body. "Destroy" usually just means that a target dies no matter the health it has(see Red Hand on vessels or Death Ring or Finger of Death on "Near Death" enemies).

It's not my idea. It's from this build: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/103683-class-build-lord-of-the-imps/ Using Essence Interrupter is another way to produce sturdier summons from weak skeletons by the way. You "mark" one skeleton and it produces a summon - while the skeleton splits into two other skeletons (Ancient Brittle Bones) which you can also mark and kill: 3 summons in the field. Also works with Grave Calling + imps. Only that the sabre has to deliver the killing blow while with the Essence Interrupter you only have to mark the creature with a crit. You can produce three summons from one single skeleton. Best is to pick a Troubadour though (in the long run). Although the summons are tougher and less you will dish out a skeleton every 3 secs (instead of 6) with "Many Lives Pass By" which you can kill then. The army grows very quickly... Beckoner starts more steeply though.

??? You simply sneak to a group of enemies and do a Stunning Surge or Flagellant's Path with mortars and you are ascended. Skip reloading and immediately start an ascended Amplified Wave or something. Besides that dual mortars are not that much slower compared to a Hunting Bow with modal - due to 30% from dual wielding and 15% from two weapon style. It's not 50% recovery time, but it's not very slow either. Plus you can skip reload and immediately do a Flagellant's Path again. It's like skipping recovery entirely between Stunning Surge and Flagellant's Path. Tons and tons of focus and often all enemies in range are already dead. You can't build focus faster than that with a Helwalker/Ascended (if there are several enemies). If you want to take out casters in he back line - that's fine. But it is neither the fastest way to build focus nor is it the best way to shut down casters. If you want to do both with one character then it's fine of course.

Mortars' damage type (for the AoE) is pierce/slash. On average that's as useful as having pierce/shock. Enduring Dance gives you +12 ACC. Hunting Bow Modal substracts 15. You end up at -3. Add the inherent +5 for all Hunting Bows and you have +2. But if you'd just turn off the modal against high defense enemies you'd have +17 ACC. And that will most certainly lead to more damage against a foe with high defenses. Against normal enemies the modal is nice - but here I argue that dual mortars would lead to a much faster ascension (usually one Full Attack from my tests from stealth). Remember that one of the mortars has a build-in jump that nearly doubles the damage per shot if the enemies stand near each other. Doesn't matter though. If you like to stick to the bow (which is indeed nice) that's totally fine. Mortar everything is kind of boring. But they are so damn effective...

You can also add a single class Furyshaper. Afaik his blood ward stacks with Old Siec...

If you didn't use Clarity and your 35 INT comes from items instead, why did you write ? However - I still think with +10 INT you will be better off using mortars most of the time (also because you can skip reloading and start casting powers immediately once ascended): The AoE grows exceptionally big and makes you hit a lot of enemies. Even with low PEN you will generate focus faster than with Essence Interrupter (by the way: mortar and hunting bow have the same base PEN). Against single foes the bow is the better pick of course because dual damage and higher base. But then you wouldn't want to trigger the modal. Edit: removed brainfart about Crippling Strike.

Not really. That is not correct. There is no druid subclass that is suited better for dealing damage with beast and plant spells (Plague of Insects, Venombloom and many others) than the Ancient. Combine with Spine of Thicket Green and Nature Godlike (both fit beautifully) and you'll have an awesome damage dealer who can also heal well and do good CC. That is not correct either. Theo only thing that works on kith only is the charm. The other bonuses (e.g. 100% hit to crit chance against charmed enemies) always work. If you multiclass with let's say a Wizard and have a Cipher or Chanter in he party you can AoE-charm enemies and then do a friendly fire AoE on all charmed enemies with the Debonaire. You will get all crits. That's pretty nice actually since casters tend to have PEN issues and crits solve most of these issues. Also make sure you take crit damage bonus stuff. You've to build around it though. But it's a subclass after all. It's ok if it is niche. Forbidden Fist is even weaker than Shattered Pillar - and that's something. Furyshaper is good. The wards are very helpful. The frenzy ward stacks its speed with everything (making you that fastest Barbarian/caster there is) and the fear ward is very powerful as CC effect. Priest of Woedica is great. Check out the unique spells! Also the summoned fists used to scale with level AND Monastic Unarmed Training. I don't know how/if that got fixed/nerfed. Psion is indeed a bit meh. If they'd remove the part "focus generation stops when gets hit" it would be decent.

You can cast Champion's Boon on yourself as well.

I wouldn't say that Rogues have no eye-popping high level powers. Vanishing Strike and Gamit for example are very, very good. You could give Edér two hand mortars (yeah, again those things, I know) and do this (single class rogue):

No, they don't stack. So no 35 INT for your Monk. At least not because of Turning Wheel + Clarity of Mind. But it's possible to reach 34 rel. easily with items (headger +2 INT + amulet +2 INT) and Turning Wheel. I don't think OP really played this character but mostly theorycrafted it. Which is fine. But some minor flaws in your build idea only become visible when you actually play a build (a bit longer). So they don't stack BUT: Clarity of Mind will always give you +5 INT even if your wound count drops below 5. Kind of a backup. So Turning Wheel and Clarity of Mind are not completely redundant. The change from Turning Wheel to melee only is stupid. I understand that they wanted to remove it from spells etc. But why are ranged weaons now excluded? Long Pain is a monk ability which can't profit from Turning Wheel now...

The quest is done pretty shicily, but I don't get too annoyed by such things. It's meh,yeah - but everybody is allowed to have a bad day or two, even designers.

Ah yes. I only remembered the short (or non-existent) recovery time. 3 seconds casting time is something of course.

I judge it by my single class mortar monk: the important part is the INT. The lash was pretty nice though. But the important part is Stunning Surge and Flagellant's Path with big AoE, not the lash.

Hehe - right. Also Robust on a Dragon should make it more... robust. Oh and patch 4.1 didn't fix the summons issue.

Why melee? Why not "weapon"? Now a monk who uses the Long Pain cannot profit from Turning Wheel - and Iron Wheel is not that useful for a ranged monk. Bummer!!!

By the way: do you guys prefer to use Dagger + modal (high bonus but melee only) or hatchets (lower bonus,but universal). Or do you switch from hatchet + large shield if you get fired at to dagger + medium shield once you get attacked in melee?

The question is "with what?".

Oh, good point. The Defiant Apparel (starting equipment) has a resistance to PER afflictons and will downgrade Blind to Disoriented. Since Disoriented has a 50% recovery penalty you will (more than) nullify your Heatig Up recovery bonus though.

By the way the most fun I had with an Assassin/Priest of Skean although it might not be the most powerful combo in terms of dps or so. But it's powerful on its own - because you can grind encounters. When I was able to sneak up on encounters I always did with this guy and shot some enemies dead and retreated to invisibility (stops combat) and repeated that. My other party members would just wait as backup. And when I had the impression that I assassinated enough I would just lure then to my party and *bam*.

Yes, you can manage the PL loss and you are both right that the most important part is the beginning of an encounter. I just wanted to point out that shifting and summoning a weapom can be a drawback for a Lifegiver.